"13 Hours" Film Paints Realistic Picture of Benghazi

At a conference organized by the Maryland Citizen Action Network last weekend, Kris Paronto [one of the CIA contractors depicted in the film] revealed that two AC-130H “Spectre” gunships were both on call and within range of Benghazi, that night.

One of them was a six-hour flight away, co-located with a U.S. special operations team in Djibouti.

The other was at Naval Air Station Sigonella, in Sicily. "That’s a 45-minute flight," Paronto said.

The Spectre gunship with its 25mm rapid-fire gatling guns, its 40 mm precision Bofors gun, and its 105mm canon is “good in urban warfare because you have little collateral damage,” Paronto explained.

In fact, it was just what the beleaguered security team needed.

The film depicts the men's sense of abandonment over and over again.

The film is being released on Friday -- sort of in the American Sniper release window. So good luck to them.